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Bruce Springsteen Is America’s Greatest Conservative Songwriter, Part II: Yapping In The Back Seat

Before I get into the beef of the series, it seems I need to do a little remedial art appreciation, logic and rhetoric.

For starters, my thesis, and the case I’m making, is “Why Bruce Springsteen is America’s Greatest Conservative Songwriter”. Not “Bruce Springsteen is a Conservative”. He’s not. That’s all duly noted and stipulated in advance.

Not “Everything Bruce Springsteen Has Ever Written Resonates with Conservatives”. It does not. Merely most of his best stuff.

But as Socrates showed us a few millennia back, the best way to teach is to ask and to answer. In other words, it’s time for one of my Frequently Asked Questions:

“But Springsteen is a teh liberal!”: It doesn’t matter even a little. The series isn’t about him or his personal politics. They are, in fact, utterly irrelevant. Art is in the eye of the beholder. Many conservatives find resonance, even inspiration, in his music, though; this series merely explains why.

“But what if Teh Boss himself were to tell you you were wrong?”: Again, doesn’t matter. It’s not about him. It’s about what he wrote.

“What does Nate Silver say?”: Nothing.

“Don’t be teh smartass. You know what I mean. How can you empirically prove your thesis?”: There is no “empiricism” in art criticism. It’s stating a critical case for a subjective point.

“You are just trying to make teh music fit your intellectual template”: Nope. I’m stating a case for why the music not only fits my worldview, but reinforces it.

“But did you ever REALLY listen to it?”: As we’ll see in coming days, clearly, more than you have. Whoever you are.

In order to correct someone’s mis-understanding of the difference between ad hominum moonbattery that is to say “Springsteen is a moonbat”, and the moonbattery of someone’s worldview (as expressed in a moonbat song, let us say), a person would first have to actually make that error, would you agree Euthydemus?

Yes, that seems logical.

And if a counter argument is made in the absence of that first requirement, which we’ve agreed to, might such protestations be logically taken as altoghether *too much*?

Yes, I’d agree that is logical as well.

I haven’t seen anyone call Springsteen a moonbat…yet; we’ll get back to that.

OK, now that we’ve settled that, let me simply cut to the chase. Springsteen is a talented song writer. His songs are very emotional…but, yes Springsteen is a undeniably a moonbat; he sees the world through kool-aid goggles, and despite your desperate, well meaning protestations to the contrary, his songs are moonbat angst set to music.

Again, I say that I’m looking forward to this series quite a lot, because (a) I’m a Springsteen fan, (b) I’m curious to see how you get there and (c) because I’m open to critical analysis, even though I’m a Packer fan. 😉